


another name for god.

by badaltin



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Arson, Dysfunctional Family, Graffiti, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Slow Burn, Teenage Rebellion, Vandalism, that good ol' found family trope, these kids have issues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-28
Updated: 2018-04-03
Packaged: 2019-03-24 23:49:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13822041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badaltin/pseuds/badaltin
Summary: During one of the worst nights of his life, seventeen-year-old Yuri Plisetsky stumbles across one of the city's most prolific graffiti artists - a polite yet jaded young man named Otabek Altin. After escaping with him on his motorcycle, Yuri is introduced to an underground world of street musicians, photographers, guerrilla artists, and red-headed donut shop owners.With the gang's support, Yuri will slowly come to realize that he can destroy through meticulous creation. And Otabek will learn that you can't just paint over your past - sometimes, you have to burn it all down....((alternatively: that one au where beka spray paints and yuri sets shit on fire that only two people asked for))[[ON HIATUS]]





	1. opus 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [onotherflights](https://archiveofourown.org/users/onotherflights/gifts).



> This whole fic came about when I saw one teensy little tag beneath one of @onotherflight's posts, and it basically grew into this uncontrollable animal neither of us anticipated. This is going to be a long boy, so **buckle up, kids.** It's gonna be one bumpy ride.

Yuri Plisetsky is a stray bullet hurtling into the darkness. There are salt tracks on his babydoll cheeks and mucus clogging his sinuses and his lungs shrivel and expand at a dizzying rate because he’s a little bitch and he’s sprinting like the devil himself wants to jump his bones. Neon street lights transform into urban stars and smear along his periphery until his boot catches on uneven sidewalk. He tumbles into the grass.

At first, he simply lays there stunned on his back, dumb bottle-green eyes directed at the umber clouds. Blood thrashes about inside his eardrums, chest heaving all the while. And then, his breath hitches. He muffles a sob into the crook of his hoodie sleeve and feels saliva seep into its woven fibers. It’s gross. It’s more than gross – it’s fucking pathetic. Little Pussy Plisetsky, writhing on his back in the front yard of some stranger. Up there in heaven, God is laughing at him; seraphs are angling a blinding spotlight of shame at Yuri for all to witness.

“Shit,” he moans.

The sky grows taller and taller until everything is falling away from him. He’s a potato bug spinning circles at the bottom of a mason jar, and outside the glass he can still see everyone’s fat ugly faces cackling, pointing at the oddity that he is. But now he’s not fun to play with anymore. He’s been ditched at the back of the playground, tossed away for the next person to come across and torment.

Screw Viktor. Screw Mama. Screw every single one of those pricks.

“I hate them I hate them I hate them I  _ hate _ ’em!” Yuri beats a rhythm into the earth. Without thinking, he grabs two hunks of grass and  _ yanks _ until moist confetti rains down. He smiles deliriously, sadistically; he likes that. There’s something pleasurable in fighting with the earth until its roots surrender to his brute strength.

To his right, a porchlight flicks on. By the time the screen door creeks on its hinges, the blond has scrambled to his feet and is but another comet flying through the night.

Back on the run again.

.

Scaling the chain-link fence is a well-practiced exercise in flexibility and strength, and soon enough Yuri’s landing on the opposite side in a crouch. It’s quieter here, where industry has taken off down the virtually-unused exit ramp and the overcast sky isn’t so choked up with light pollution. It’s a wide lot. Hundreds of workers used to park second-hand junkers on this sea of asphalt and gravel until the canning factory went under a month ago; now it’s just a decent place to set off firecrackers. The abandoned facility itself is already well on its way to being claimed by delinquent city urchins.

Yuri thought the physical exertion would calm him down, but his hands fumble so much that he drops his lighter. “Fuck,” he says.

‘Fuck,’ his lighter mocks.

Whatever. Piece of shit, anyway. Did he still have that - yes!

Yuri extracts the new matchbox from his hoodie pocket and rattles it by his ear. He actually just lifted these from the gas station earlier that day, not an hour before Viktor –

Yuri may have deplorable grades in school, but that only tells you how skilled he is at following directions and rolling over like a dog. He can tell you anything you want to know about the chemical composition of this brand of safety matches versus a strike anywhere box (his personal favorite). How the phosphorus sesquisulfide and potassium chlorate in a safety box’s “strike surface” are vital components in the tip of a regular match. And how their absence from a safety match render them useless when separated from the corresponding box.  _ Yes _ , he realizes he doesn’t live to his full potential in school, but  _ no _ , he doesn’t give a shit. Screw that noise.

The same friction he feels between himself and his teachers is what ignites the wooden match in his hand. A puff of gas, the crackle of heat, and in a small miracle of sulfuric glory a bite-sized flame flares up in the desolate night. He turns the stick sideways, and watches fire expand over the wooden stick until there’s no room left for his fingers and the fire to share. He drops it. Breath is coming heavily out of Yuri’s nostrils as he lights another. And then, another.

He goes through six more before his heart lets him rest. Yuri slides his box closed and pockets it before bending over to retrieve his lighter.

Shaking out his shoulders and yanking his hoodie tight over his scalp, the teenager is uncertain. A car honks from the distant highway, like reality knocking on Yuri’s door. What’s he doing here? He didn’t even bring his bag, for Christ’s sake – he just… ran. Foolishly. Without a plan.

Yuri’s inner musings are disturbed, however, when his ears pick up on a commotion coming from around the factory. From where he stands, the monstrous husk of the building appears desolate and utterly abandoned, but he’s certain he didn’t invent that noise. It was too foreign, too intentionally muffled.

Yuri squints; he’s not alone.

On stealthy rubber-soles, Yuri tiptoes a wide arc around the unloading dock and not fifteen feet away he spots the interloper.  

See, Yuri’s not too prideful to admit he’s white trash. When he was five and living in Moscow with Dedushka, they were slumming it in some Soviet-Era apartment block with other working-class scum. Now at seventeen, Yuri spends his days in an arguably seedier end of a major metropolitan area in the American Midwest. He knows which gangs wear what colors, passes by dealers on his way to school – hell, a stripper used to come by and babysit him when he was younger. Point is, he’s grown up with the shitty kind of people living in the underbelly of society.  

The man – boy? – before him, though, is an alien concept altogether. He’s dressed in black, standing before a clear section of wall and rattling an aerosol can in his hand. As he raises it to the brick façade, Yuri realizes he’s not like any graffiti writer he’s ever met before. It’s in the way the stranger moves, quick sweeping motions that lay down thin lines of crimson paint.

There’s too much dignity in the set of his shoulders – like the leather jacket on his back is made of gold.

Confused, Yuri turns to his default: anger. “Hey!” he shouts, taking an aborted step forward.

The stranger whips around. He stands tense, hand twitching towards a back pocket while almost his entire face is infuriatingly protected by a ratty bandana.

Yuri grits his teeth. He’s caught in this Mexican Stand-Off, staring back at the graffiti writer’s unflinching black-diamond gaze. And then, the other man turns back around and continues painting.

Yuri blinks, and then his face heats with outrage. “Hey! I’m talking to you, asshole!” Of course, the Russian has no idea what he wants to say, but he’s got some wannabe street punk to deal with who, for some stupid reason,  _ is still facing the wall _ . Yuri stomps forward, and for a second it gets the vandal to freeze in his tracks. But then he merely switches out one can for another, not even sparing a glance at the blistering blond.

“What do you want?” the stranger wonders aloud. It’s gruff. Curt. But even muffled by cotton it’s still wrapped in a moonlight velvety confidence Yuri would sell his left nut to have.

“What do- I.” His mouth goes slack as his brain whirrs, stumbling to regather itself. “This is my spot!” Yuri finally settles on. Street artists respect territory, right?

The man meets his eyes, dark and glimmering, and quirks a single thick eyebrow. Deliberately, without breaking eye contact, he takes a step to the side.

“That’s not what I fucking meant.”

The man responds by ignoring him.

Yuri throws his hands up into the air and closes the distance by leaning against the bricks. He thumbs the lighter in his pocket, and it’s heavy with potential. Oh, there’s an idea.

“You know that shit’s gonna be gone by morning,” Yuri says idly, feigning disinterest.

“Why.”

Yuri picks up one of the cans next to him and slips out his BIC with the other hand. He lights it, and when he depresses the nozzle on the can, a stream of fire explodes outwards.

After a few seconds, Yuri lets it die and turns to the graffiti writer. He has the man’s undivided attention, now.

“I came here to set shit on fire,” Yuri says with a swagger he doesn’t quite possess. “So you better move your dumb project somewhere else.”

A beat. “No.”

“Why not.”

“Because this is  _ important _ .” And  _ oh _ – Yuri sees it. There are coals in this vandal’s eyes, and they’re glowing.  _ Burning _ . They’re just like the furnace raging white-hot beneath Yuri’s skin, and in that instant, he knows the other man feels it too. Constantly. Endlessly.

Two flaming stars, on a path of collision. Yuri tastes iron on his tongue.

Whatever was going to leave Yuri’s mouth will remain unknown; they’re interrupted by a flashlight beam dancing off to their left.

“Fuck,” Yuri swears. “Is that-”

“5-0. We need to run.” The graffiti artist shoves cans into his duffel, and Yuri slips the one he borrowed back before the bag is zipped up.

“You have a backup plan?” Yuri hisses, straightening and following the other as he jogs along the side of the factory.

“There’s a-”

“Hey!” They turn back to see the police officer and break into a dead sprint. Rounding another corner, metal cans clanging in their bag, Yuri spots a jet-black motorcycle leaning on its kickstand.

“Here.” The other man dumps the bag into Yuri’s arms. In a daze, Yuri slings it over his shoulder, no questions asked. The man revs the engine. “Are you coming or not?” he asks, looking determinedly over his shoulder.

Yuri’s mind can only focus long enough to craft one thought:  _ ‘I’ve never been on a motorcycle before.’ _

Bearing his teeth like the feral beast that he is, Yuri nods.

Yeah. He’s coming.

  
  



	2. opus 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the wait! i got deliriously sick and then life got super crazy. i rewrote this chapter so many times i thought i was going to go insane! but i've been living off of your comments and your support has helped me finish this ^_^
> 
> this is a bit short but next chapter will be longer ;) enjoy!
> 
> \---
> 
> epigraph taken from Jack Kerouac's "Unnamed Poem 1," part of _Scattered Poems._

 

> _I_  
>  _clearly_  
>  _saw_  
>  _the skeleton underneath_  
>  _all_  
>  _this_  
>  _show_  
>  _of personality_  
>  _what_  
>  _is_  
>  _left_  
>  _of a man and all his pride_  
>  _but bones?_

  

Otabek claps the book closed, the object held so near to his face that the displaced air ruffles his uncut hair. He thought reading might help calm him down, but… Anyways. He touches it to his nose, the object thin enough to fit between his nostrils. Otabek swallows. His breaths come harsh, materializing as ghostly vapors before disappearing into the night.

It’s cold. It’s very, very cold, and Otabek is very, very much alone. 

He shivers. It’s supposed to be spring, but the unnatural dip in temperatures is making his leather coat about as effective at protecting him from the elements as a jacket made of toilet paper. At least the slide at his back shields him from the wind. The trade-off, though, is that the hulking plastic mass is like a magnet to the cold. When Otabek first decided to camp out beneath it in the playground, he had dug a shallow recess in the mulch to huddle in. Now, it’s more like a frostbitten grave.

The teenager looks out at the abandoned play sets, a cloud of melancholy rolling over him like rain.

_What is left of a man and all his pride but bones?_

Otabek grits his teeth. _What indeed_.

He tucks the book inside one of his coat’s deep pockets, and shivers again. Poetry isn’t going to keep him from freezing tonight.

After all, morning is still many hours away.

 

* * *

  

The past has been a heavy constant all day, even with the weight of the young blond’s arms around Otabek’s torso while they soar down the highway. It bore down on Otabek when he first set out that evening, flaring acutely when confronted by the teenager.

Maybe it was something in the boy’s anger that made memory dance in Otabek’s periphery. Anger is as familiar to Otabek as the rumble of his engine or the hissing of his aerosol cans. He’s held it in his core for so long the pressure has ground the emotion into a dark, heavy nut that he keeps anchored in his gut. On hollow days, it’s easy to crack open the shell and feast upon what’s inside. It’s kept him alive until now, and he wears it well.

Anger displays itself on this boy like stripes on a Siberian Tiger.

Checking behind him, Otabek switches into the right lane and pulls off the highway.

“Why are we stopping?” the blond demands after dismounting, helmet and bag dumped to the ground beside the road.

“We are no longer being followed.” It’s true – they had been riding for half an hour with no other destination in mind but _away_.

“Fucking so?”

Otabek suppresses an amused huff. The kid’s got spunk. “So, you want to spend the rest of the night pressed up against my back?”

Blood flushes up the blond’s cheeks in a decidedly attractive way. “Don’t kid yourself, creep! For all I know, you pulled us over to slash my throat, or steal my kidneys, or whatever.”

Otabek smirks. “I’m not that ambitious.”

“You never even told me your name.” The other teenager crosses his arms. “To me right now, you’re just graffiti-motorcycle-weirdo.”

“And you never gave me yours.”

The boy ducks behind chin-length hair. “Oh,” he says.

Otabek remains quiet, eyes cast out to the brown night soiled by early-morning light pollution. The city will start to wake, soon.

“I’m Yuri,” Yuri offers after a beat of silence. “Plisetsky.”

“Call me Otabek,” Otabek says.

Yuri squints at him. “Otabek what?”

Otabek shrugs. “Stick around and maybe you’ll find out.”

Irritated, Yuri blows his bangs out of his face. “What kind of name is that anyways?”

“Are you Russian?” Otabek gives for an answer.

Yuri’s nose crinkles, and he rolls his eyes. “What fucking gave it away?” he replies, leaning forcibly on the accent Otabek’s heard throughout the night.

Otabek shrugs again. “My family comes from a country in the region. Let’s leave it at that.” 

There’s a question on the other boy’s lips, but the air is sliced clean through by a firetruck in the distance. Within seconds it’s upon them, screaming until their world is bathed in red lights and an artificial howl. And then… it’s gone. 

“We should go,” Yuri suggests. His words wobble between them, riding the aftershocks.

“Not yet.”

Yuri’s bottle green eyes flash, and the danger Otabek sees in them is nothing short of intoxicating. He can already hear the sparks cracking like a whip, can smell the black smoke. Heat, flickering in the dark. This boy is fire, and Otabek is ready to _burn._

“Listen, _asshole,_ ” he grits, the volume of his words swelling like an overripe fruit. “You might be fine in your jacket but I’m fucking freezing, and it’s late, and we’re in the middle of fucking nowhere-”

Otabek is a slave to laugh that escapes him; it works through his shoulders and he shakes his head. “I’m joking,” he chuckles. “Just tell me where to take you.”

Yuri scoffs, and turns until his face is hidden. “I don’t care.”

“That’s not a place.” 

One of Yuri’s fists clenches, and he hunches forward. “I said _it doesn_ _’_ _t matter._ ”

Otabek rolls his next question over in his mind like a perfectly smooth stone. “Do you have people worrying where you are?”

And when Yuri turns around, Otabek feels at once both gravely ancient and sixteen once again. He doesn’t know Yuri. He doesn’t know his history, or his situation, or why his eyes were raw and puffy when he first confronted Otabek back at the factory. But Otabek is intimately familiar with the bald panic that Yuri is unable to hide.

“You can spend the night with me, if you want.”

He won’t ask, not yet. But at the very least, he could offer a comfortable place for him to sleep. Besides, Otabek knows that plastic slides and playground dirt aren’t exactly quality bed material.

For whatever reason, it’s the image of Yuri with mulch in his pretty yellow hair that haunts Otabek the rest of the drive back.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! comment if you liked, and find me on tumblr [@badaltin](http://badaltin.tumblr.com/)!

**Author's Note:**

> One thing I'd like to make clear: Yuri is not a pyromaniac. Pyromania is a mental disorder, and although he may display some tendencies associated with it, Yuri doesn't actually have it. As a person who lives with compulsion-related issues (OCD, anyone?), it is very important to me that I do not offend anyone by trivializing diseases or making it a cute "quirk" to have. If Yuri **did** have pyromania, this would be a much different story.
> 
> Okay, just wanted to get that out of the way! I'm [badaltin](http://badaltin.tumblr.com/) on tumblr, so come say hi! Also, seeing as how this is going to be many chapters and a lot of work, please leave kudos and a comment if you enjoyed! 
> 
> Thanks ^_^


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